A Man Haunted
by TheWomanWhoCodesAndWrites
Summary: Rebel. Revolutionary. Comrade. Friend. Lover. Father. Statesman. President. Murderer. Series of oneshots of Gale Hawthorne's life after the rebellion, a life of a man haunted. Canon compliant, post MJ. Dedicated to 'axes tridents and snares', reader and discussion buddy extraordinaire.


Dedicated to my awesome reader and friend 'axes tridents and snares' who inspired me to start this series - with this very chapter.

This will be a series of oneshots, most likely in random order, set in the future of canon world. It will be updated as time goes by (i.e. no set schedule), and will be marked 'completed' for the time being.

Before I proceed, I shall warn all my readers that this is not a Gale/Madge story (i.e strictly canon compliant). If you can't stand Gale not being with Madge, perhaps you should give this a miss. There are plenty of Gale/Madge stories that you can read out there - plenty of good ones, judging the summaries and the amount of reviews :).

This chapter is set around thirty years after the rebellion, when Gale is President of the Republic of Panem and married with two children (daughters aged 21 yo and 8 yo). I deliberately leave out his wife's name here, but I can assure you she's not an OC.

There is a slight analysis of Gale and Madge's situation here, which is the main point of the chapter. It's inspired by this conversation I had with 'axes tridents and snares' regarding what actually happened. I'm open to discussion, though, feel free to review or PM if you disagree or feel like saying something. I don't bite ;).

**Disclaimer: **All belongs to Suzanne Collins.

**One : Strawberries**

Juniper's big grey eyes twinkled as she tilted her head up to beam at him.

Gale smiled back and ruffled the girl's hair playfully, resisting the urge to chuckle at the sight before him. His wife and their daughter were as different in personalities as they were similar in looks. Juniper was the day to her mother's night, the calming blue to her mother's scorching red.

The most perpetually happy member of their family of four.

"So, you like your strawberries, huh?" he asked his daughter.

The eight year old flashed him a toothy grin and nodded. Repeatedly.

Gale looked away, as the sight of two pigtail braids swishing in afternoon sunlight was too much to bear.

_They're dark_, he told himself, as he tried to calm his raging guilt. _It's Juniper. It's just your daughter_.

"Pa?"

_Damn it, Hawthorne. Stop all this guilt crap._

"Yes June?" he answered, turning back to the olive-skinned girl.

"Do you think Ma would love some?" the girl asked back, pointing at the half-emptied punnet of strawberries on their park bench.

Gale chuckled. His wife wasn't an avid strawberry fan. Except in that one time when she was pregnant with the little strawberry monster sitting before him now.

Juniper observed him - curious and keen.

"So she hates it," she concluded soon afterwards.

"'Hate' is perhaps incorrect," he corrected his youngest. "Let's just say your mother is... indifferent."

Juniper nodded, pursing her lips and frowning in all seriousness.

"Okay," she then said, pulling the punnet lid closed. "I'll save it for someone who likes it."

_Someone who likes it._

Gale closed his eyes, as his memory took him back to that innocent time nearly thirty years ago. To the familiar, forbidden woods just outside his old district, with a netted strawberry bush which used to make him a little bit of living. To that mansion-among-shacks he used to hate, to the Mayor who liked strawberries and the blonde, blue-eyed girl who used to answer the door.

To the dead girl who gave his former best friend an innocent gesture of friendship which then became a rebellion symbol.

Madge Undersee and him. Two people from two different worlds, who had never fully understood each other. Two people whom people said could have been - although he doubted they all knew what they were saying when they said it.

He didn't quite know the whole story, and had never bothered trying to find out more, thanks to the most recent two women in his life. But when he scrutinized those hazy parts of his memory, those parts which could either be imaginary or as real as the air he breathed, he could somehow remember fancy, strawberry-flavoured lip ointment, and a pair of smooth hands running up and down his arms.

"_Stop lying, you fool_," he recalled his wife telling him off, after he'd shared that potential memory with her. "_You drunk-smooched that girl, for whatever reason there was. Simple as that. Fullstop_."

If only he had his wife's blunt honesty.

"Pa?"

Thank heavens for those extra anchors it had thrown him these past few years.

"Yes June?"

"Do you know anyone who likes strawberry?"

Know, he thought, a bitter smile forming on his lips. Not knew.

"Well, only Juniper Joan likes it," he told his daughter, again ruffling the dark hair on the crown of her head. "There was this pretty, nice girl from District Twelve who once liked it, but she was no more."

"Okay," the girl responded. "So, she's dead."

"Yes," Gale confirmed, the memory of the fires and the bombs and the screams flooding his mind. "She died in the bombing."

Juniper looked up at him, again. That face. That heartbreakingly innocent face.

He prayed that his daughter would never know war and guilt.

"Sorry to hear about your friend," said the girl.

"It's alright," he reassured his daughter. "She was... well, she wasn't my friend."

"Sorry to hear about your non-friend, then," Juniper corrected, looking all sincere and empathetic.

He broke in laughter - an inappropriate one - as he heard that.

"Acquaintance, Juniper," he corrected the girl, shaking his head. "No one said 'non-friend', except your mother."

"But Ma is the First Lady," the girl reasoned. "She's the person with the most immaculate etiquette in the whole country."

"Hell," he muttered, breaking into a further bout of laughter. "Whatever your mother said, Juniper. She is not the person with the most immaculate etiquette in the whole _Republic_."

His wife. The First Lady. The title didn't quite suit her, somehow. She wasn't anywhere near a Lady. Madge Undersee, that was a Lady. Gale's wife was more like, a First Woman. There had never been a single day when he wasn't brutally criticized in the privacy of their quarters, never been a single day when he wasn't being nagged about the way he ran the Republic. Yet, he was happy with that. He had a greater capacity to love women than he had ladies.

Although, maybe - and just maybe - Madge could have proven herself a woman, had he given her a chance. But, then, maybe they wouldn't last. Who knew?

Madge was dead, Katniss was married to Peeta Mellark, and Gale, well, Gale had found what he thought was a soulmate in his wife, a fellow fighter who clung to life with the same vigour and burned with the same intensity.

"Then who has the most immaculate etiquette?" Juniper snapped him out of his thoughts.

"No one does," Gale answered, offering a hand to his daughter as he saw his wife approaching - with about seven shopping bags in her hands -, followed closely by his somewhat-sulky older daughter. "Come on. I think your sister Cypress Gail can use some strawberries. I bet your mother tried to get her into bikinis again."


End file.
